


Playing at Fighting Monsters

by Annariel



Category: Primeval, Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Gen, references to canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: Tom Ryan is playing at fighting monsters in the park and Time has a use for this.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elfin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/gifts).



Tom Ryan, all four feet of him, came screaming down the hill. His men, or at least Neil Childs and Gavin Stevens, charged after him. Tom paused at the foot of the hill where a path ran through the park and swung around, his toy rifle at the ready.

"The monsters are closing in!" he shouted.

He had a vivid image in his mind's eye of a hideous grey creature. He blinked a moment, lifted his rifle up to fire and let off an imaginary shot just as Neil and Gavin caught up with him.

"Got it!" he said triumphantly. "But there must be more around here. Let's split up to look!"

Five minutes later he charged back along the path, swung around and fired at another imaginary monster. He didn't notice he had picked the exact same spot for the fight. Then he ran on.

Moments later two people stepped out of nowhere. A man and woman, he dressed in a bland steel grey suit and she in an impractical sapphire blue dress that swept across the dandelion heads growing in the grass by the path.

"Where are we?" Steel asked.

"A park, somewhere in the North of England. It is the summer of 1977. We're in the middle of a heatwave," Sapphire answered.

"What are we looking for in a park? There's hardly anything here."

Sapphire looked around and faint amusement tugged at the corners of her mouth as if to say she thought his dismissal of the trees, flower and shrubs as `nothing' was typical and a little charming.

"This whole landscape is man-made," she said.

"But that's not the kind of thing Time can exploit, is it? A trigger needs to be more specific than some grass."

Sapphire inclined her head. "Maybe."

At that moment Tom Ryan charged up the path once more. This time chasing behind Neil and Gavin. Steel started towards the group, but Sapphire held him back. After a moment of silent communication they stepped further back, far enough away from the path that they could be ignored by the children.

Neil and Gavin crouched down.

"The monsters are coming in from all sides!" Gavin shouted.

Tom came up behind them. He swung around on the spot, bringing his rifle up to shoot the nearest monster.

Sapphire gasped.

"That's another down!" Tom shouted.

"Best keep moving!" Neil said.

They ran on.

"What is it?" Steel asked.

"Something happened, when the boy shot the imaginary monster."

"Take time back! Show me!"

Sapphire stilled, her eyes glowing as she rewound the moment. Tom Ryan swung around on the spot, bringing up his rifle to shoot the nearest monster.

"Again!" Steel said, walking around to get a different view on the scene.

Tom Ryan swung around on the spot, bring up his rifle to shoot the nearest monster.

"The gun? Is it the gun?" Steel demanded.

Sapphire stepped closer, reaching through time to analyse the gun. Tom Ryan swung around on the spot. Sapphire's hand ghosted over his plastic toy gun and she gasped. Tom vanished.

"What is it? Was it the gun?"

"No! No! It was a perfectly normal toy gun, less than a year old. Made in Hong Kong and shipped to the UK."

"So what? What did you sense?"

"It was the time loop Steel. I could feel it, just by holding that moment I was weakening the fabric."

"But how?"

Tom Ryan charged back down the hill, side by side with Gavin. They had lost Neil somewhere but he was bound to turn up. The park wasn't exactly large.

Tom swung around as he reached the path, raised his rifle and shot at another monster, before charging away.

Sapphire looked at Steel. "He did the same motion on the same spot."

Steel stepped forward and started to turn.

"No! Don't!" Sapphire said urgently reaching out to hold his shoulder.

Steel stilled, his arms at his side. "But it's here. On this spot. The trigger is here and it's being activated by the boy."

"Yes." 

"But what is here? It's a path, bare earth, not even tarmac or paving stones. There is grass and small flowers and what else?" Steel said in frustration.

Sapphire took a cautious step closer and crouched down to touch the ground.

"There are rocks under here. Close to the surface. Ancient rocks."

"How old?"

"They date from long before humanity, before the dinosaurs even. They come from the Permian." 

"They're irrelevant then. If they date back from before humanity, they can't be the trigger."

"I don't know, it's as if there's something else there."

"Can you analyse them, through the ground?" Steel asked.

"I don't know."

"Try!"

Sapphire placed her hands flat on the bare earth. Her eyes glowed once more as she reached her senses out into the ground.

"It's back such a long way Steel."

"Keep trying!"

She gasped. "It's the boy! He's there too, over 250 million years ago."

"That's impossible!"

"He's older. A soldier. He has a gun. He stands on this spot. He turns but he's too late. The creature gets him."

"What creature?"

Sapphire broke away suddenly backing up several spots from the place on the ground. "A creature from the future, almost as far ahead as those rocks are back. Steel, what happened here?"

"I don't know but our concern must be to prevent whatever happened back then, from breaking through into the present."

Sapphire nodded and rose to her feet. She looked at the grassy slope of the hill and the path that wound around it.

"Time is using his game with his friends to re-enact that moment on this spot and each time it happens the fabric gets a little weaker."

"So we need to stop the game."

"Yes, I think so. If we break his attention then Time will lose the opportunity, but I don't think it will be easy. Time has him in its grasp, it won't let go easily."

Tom Ryan ran over the hill and down the grassy slope. It wasn't clear he was even aware of Sapphire and Steel even though they now stood in the middle of the path. He stopped in the usual place. Steel took hold of his shoulders. There was a moment of tension. Steel's fingers tensed as he fought to hold both boy and Time still. The the moment was gone. Tom Ryan looked up startled, into Steel's eyes.

"You should watch where you're going," Steel said.

"Sorry Sir."

"Maybe it's time for another game," Sapphire said gently, stepping forward with a smile.

Gavin and Neil came over the hill and stopped uncertainly, seeing the two adults with their friend.

"Yes, Miss."

Tom smiled shyly and then started back up the hill towards his friends. "What about a game of Star Wars!" he shouted as he went. "Baggsy be Luke Skywalker!"

"What's Star Wars?" Steel asked.

"A film. It will be harmless in this context. They'll be shooting imaginary space ships for the next hour or so."

"Then we are done here."

"Yes, we are done."

They watched as the three children disappeared over the top of the hill and then they both turned and left. A hot summer breeze ghosted over the place where Captain Tom Ryan's body had lain through the millenia.


End file.
